Clearly I haven’t shot anything irl ever and don’t know much about weapons either. Oh and relax, I’m not planning on shooting anyone.

Question comes after videogames, which can sometimes have both weapon types used interchangeably and/or behaving in a similar way.

I would personally believe guns are easier, and that the only advantage a bow would ever have is that they’re not as noisy. But I hear people say aiming with a bow is easier. I guess the type of bow and gun used would also weigh on the matter?

  • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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    21 hours ago

    Guns. The advent of firearms revolutionized warfare to the extent that no other military arms mattered, and no other training mattered.

    Before firearms were adopted, it would take a good ten to twenty years to raise a standing army, and retinues would still need a few months of training to not be slaughtered within the first battle. With firearms you just need a week or two and any peasant with two arms became an effective soldier.

    Contrasting this, bowmen weren’t peasants. They did not return to their family when there wasn’t war. They were trained from around the age of seven to around the age of 15, and after this would be a professional soldier until they retired or died; training every single day (except Sundays or Saturdays depending on religion). They were paid to be bowmen, nothing else. Even if a peasant could use a bow, say if they were a hunter, they would never qualify for military service. Its that big of a difference in skill.

    As to their differences in effect, range and force.

    The weakest powder musket equals a ~80lbs draw war bow. Both can pierce plate armor on a good day, but the former can do so from a longer distance and again with decades less training. As guns get more advanced, their range and penetration increases massively, whereas most archers will be unable to draw a 120lbs or higher bow, meaning there is a maximum distance and effectiveness of bows that is almost comically lower than weapons.

    To keep with freedom units, a deadly long range bow shot tops out at around a quarter mile with a high draw weight long bow. That’s about the absolute max, assuming the victim is wearing no armor. The current record for a sniper with a gun is around 1.5 miles, with the target wearing body armor.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      That’s not really true, early firearm existed alongside bows for centuries before they became dominant.